Steve Earle was lucky enough to come up in Nashville in the '70s, which Guy Clark described as the country singer/songwriter's equivalent of Paris in the ‘20s. Music City is where Earle picked up some of Clark's gift for hard-bitten storytelling and some of Townes Van Zandt's poetic flair. But he didn't have to go to New Jersey in order to soak up some of Bruce Springsteen's heartland rock heroism.